1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a backlight assembly. More particularly, the present invention relates to a backlight assembly having a light emitting diode (“LED”), a display apparatus having the backlight assembly and a method of preventing a current controller of the backlight assembly from being shut down.
2. Description of the Related Art
Liquid crystal display (“LCD”) apparatuses are typically employed in devices such as monitors, notebook computers, cellular phones and large-screen televisions, for example, because the LCD apparatuses have advantages such as being thin, light weight and having low power consumption compared to other display apparatuses. An LCD apparatus generally includes a display panel and a backlight assembly. The display panel displays an image by controlling a light transmissivity of liquid crystal. The backlight assembly is disposed under the display panel and provides the display with light.
The backlight assembly includes a light source generating light. For example, the light source may include a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (“CCFL”), a hot cathode fluorescent lamp (“HCFL”) or a light emitting diode (“LED”). LEDs are largely used as the light source because LEDs have particularly low power consumption and good color reproduction.
In a backlight assembly including the LED as the light source, LED strings of a plurality of LED strings are connected in electrical parallel with each another. At least one current controller is connected to the plurality of LED strings.
The current controller generally compensates for differences among resistances of individual LED strings of the plurality of LED strings, to control driving currents which flow through the LED strings.
However, power consumption of the current controller increases as differences among the resistances of the individual LED strings increase. When the power consumption of the current controller increases, the current controller overheats. As a result, a high-temperature prevention circuit included in the current controller shuts down the current controller.